The Joy of Work Completed
Genesis 2:2 and 3:17-19

A. This is Labor Day weekend, & I come to it with mixed emotions because I’m not sure exactly what to do with this particular holiday.
All year long we gear up for holidays. For Christmas we try to get in the spirit of giving. For New Years we try to get in the spirit of new beginnings. For the 4th of July we get all patriotic. For Thanksgiving we try to get ourselves in a thankful mood.
But what are we supposed to do for Labor Day? If we are honoring work, shouldn’t we go to work an hour early on Labor Day & say to our boss, "I’m so thankful for work that I’m here early? I’ll work all day & late tonight, & I don’t even want to be paid for it, because I enjoy my work so much."
Well, we certainly won’t volunteer to do anything like that, will we? Instead, most of us expect to have the day off with pay. But somehow that just doesn’t fit the pattern of how we honor the other holidays.
B. Statistics reveal that if we live to retirement, that as an employee we will have worked nearly 90,000 hours of our life. Now multiply that out, & it comes to over 45 years of 40-hour weeks, 50 weeks a year minus national holidays. We will have spent that much time at our job, & that is a large slice of life.
Put that together with the fact that most people don’t really care about their jobs, & they look at their work as something to be endured rather than enjoyed. So it is no wonder that Labor Day weekend comes along & we’re not really sure what we should be honoring.
ILL. I heard a story that probably has more truth than fiction. It is about an employer who brought his employees in once a month for a pep talk. He would inform them of the future plans of the company, & try to excite them about their work so that they would be enthusiastic about what they were doing.
On one occasion he called them in & said, "We have just purchased a bunch of robots. And these robots will free you from some of the tedious things you have been doing in the past, tightening screws, & so on."
Instantly he sensed from the expressions on their faces that they were concerned about job security. So quickly he added, "Now don’t worry about your jobs. Nobody is going to lose a job as a result of these robots. There will be some reduction in the work force, but that will be taken care of through retirement & natural attrition. You’ll all keep your jobs."
"In fact," he said, "this will even work to your advantage. As we perfect the work of these robots you will probably not even have to work a full 40-hour week, & you can take a day off now & then with no reduction in pay."
He said, "As we get this system perfected even more, maybe you can have two days off. You’ll only have to work 3 days a week. In fact, our ultimate goal is that the time will come when you will only come in one day a week, on Wednesdays. That will be it, & you’ll still get your full salary."
One of the employees in the back row raised his hand. He had a question. "Sir, will we have to come in every Wednesday?"
PROP. I think Labor Day should remind us that work is a blessing, & not a curse. So this morning I want to talk about work as a blessing. I want to talk about work as service. Finally, I want to suggest that work is not enough.
I. WORK IS A BLESSING
A. In Genesis 2:2 we read, "By the 7th day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the 7th day He rested from all His work. And God blessed the 7th day & made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done."
That tells us that God is a worker, & we have been created in His image.
Vs. 7 says, "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground & breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, & man became a living being."
Vs. 15 says, "The Lord God took the man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & take care of it."
ILL. Every year some of you become enthusiastic gardeners. You grab your hoes, & with a whistle on your lips, you turn over the ground & plant the seeds. You just know that this will be your year to have a bumper crop of all those great vegetables you love to eat freshly picked from the garden.
But it is not long until weeds have come, & bugs are eating away at your delicate plants, & you’re sweating profusely, & you begin to lose your enthusiasm for gardening.
Work can be fun. But when you put work together with thorns & thistles & other parts of the curse, then it often is not much fun any more.
C. When God first made man He blessed him, & made him a partner with God in caring for & tending the Garden. The Bible teaches us that we are also partners with God in the work that we do. In some vocations that is more obvious than in others.
ILL. Think about a farmer. Farmers work hand in hand with God. Farmers, during a severe drought, learn that lesson all over again. We depend upon God, for we are in a partnership with Him.
In the church, all I can do is sow the seed & then wait on the Lord to give the increase. A doctor can perform surgery & remove diseased parts of the body, but then he must wait on the Lord to do the work of healing. And it is probably the same way in your work, too.
D. I think that a most fulfilling part of life comes in knowing that you have worked hand in hand with God, & are fulfilling His will, doing what God has called you to do.
But some of the saddest words in the Bible are those words of Jesus when He looked at the people who were coming to Him, & He said, "The fields are white unto harvest, but the laborers are few." There is always plenty of work, but there just never seems to be enough laborers.
There is no book in the Bible that has more to say about being ambitious & the lack of ambition than the book of Proverbs. And one passage, written by Solomon, that deals with that subject is Proverbs 24:30-34.
“I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.
“I applied my heart to what I observed & learned a lesson from what I saw: A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - & poverty will come on you like a bandit & scarcity like an armed man.”
We can clearly see the picture that Solomon is painting. With your permission, let me retell the story in modern dialect.
ILL. I was out walking, & I noticed this house. It was beautiful. The lawn was well manicured, carefully fertilized, neatly mowed & trimmed.
The flowerbeds were gorgeous, & it had a large, flourishing garden. The house had been freshly painted, & all the windows were sparkling clean. It was a beautiful sight to behold!
But, as I continued walking, I couldn't help but notice the contrast with one of his neighbors. That house was in a bad state of repair. The lawn looked like it had not been mowed in months. The flowerbeds were full of weeds.
The house itself was badly in need of paint. There were holes in the roof, & some windows were broken.
As I approached that house & opened the gate, it fell off its hinges. Then I felt a sharp pain at my ankle, & discovered that the yard was full of thorns & nettles.
I saw a man sitting on the porch. I greeted him, "Hello, how you?" "Not good at all," he replied. "Everything is going to pot these days. The welfare system is a mess. They don't give me enough money. And I just don't have time to get anything done."
I replied, "Well, I do see that your place is pretty sad looking. You don't have much grass, but you could at least cut down the weeds, & patch things up a bit. And you do have plenty of room for a garden."
"Aw, I can't do that," he says. "You see, I'm worried about my back, & my muscles aren't as strong as they used to be. There's just too much to do."
So as we look at the man, & his house, his yard, & the garden area ? we realize that here is a man who simply has not done what he could & should have done. His house & garden & lawn were all neglected. And that is the subject Solomon is presenting to us ? NEGLECT.
Whenever neglect takes place, the process of decay automatically sets in. This is an important subject, so we are going to ask 3 questions about this man.
First of all, "Why was he so neglectful?" And to keep this sermon from being so long, let’s concentrate on his garden.
A. I am sure that if we were to ask him about his neglect, he would probably have a variety of excuses.
1. Maybe he would say, "I don't have enough room for a garden." We know that isn't true, but that might be one of his excuses.
We would say, "Look, here is all this space that could be used for a good garden if only you would use it." "Well," he says, "I know, but it is not as big as my neighbor's, so I didn't even bother."
He had plenty of space for a garden, but he never utilized the potential that was there.
APPL. It is not hard to see that what Solomon is saying applies to our lives, too. God has given each of us a garden - our life, & we can plant good seeds or bad. We can make our life good, or we can make it bad. It is totally up to us.
2. Or this man might say, "Well, yes I do have room for a garden, but my ground just isn't fertile."
He goes on, "If I planted some seeds, they wouldn't grow. I knew it would be a waste of time, so I decided not to try at all."
We could reply, "But if that is true, then how do you explain your tremendous crop of weeds? Ground that will grow weeds that big could also grow flowers & vegetables, because the same minerals that produce a healthy crop of weeds can also produce something worthwhile. That is not a good excuse."
APPL. That's true with life, too. The same qualities can produce either evil or good. So there is a real need for Christians to present to the world the Gospel that can transform lives & change evil into good.
3. Well, the man might say, "Maybe it is fertile enough, & maybe it could have grown a crop, but you see, the environment here is pretty bad. Animals would probably get into my garden & ruin everything. That's why I haven't tried."
APPL. Sometimes people say, "I would like to live for Christ, but I live in a bad environment." Don't you realize that God has provided all we need to live a Christian life?
In Ephesians 6:11 the apostle Paul tells us, "Put on the whole armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." Make sure that you are protected from the flaming missiles of the evil one ? & you will be able to live victoriously for Christ even in a bad environment.
B. Well, why then did this man fail? He didn't fail because he couldn't have a garden. The ground was fertile. If he didn't fail because of bad environment, why did he fail? Proverbs tells us that he failed because he was lazy.
In fact, Solomon calls him a "sluggard." That is a fancy word for "lazy." The man was lazy. Solomon says, “I... learned a lesson from what I saw: A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - & poverty will come on you like a bandit & scarcity like an armed man.”
So here is a picture of laziness, & sad to say, laziness is our enemy. We must constantly battle it, or it will defeat us, & we will fail like the man pictured here.
There is another question, "Why is this picture in Proverbs such a tragedy?" There are two answers to that.
A. First of all, it is a tragedy because this man failed to realize the value of work. It is everybody's responsibility, whether old or young, man or woman, wise or unwise, rich or poor, to be a contributor to life & society. It is everybody's responsibility to do something constructive.
ILL. Whenever we see a machine, regardless of how impressive it might appear, the first question we usually ask is, "What does it do?"
APPL. The tragedy of this man's life is that he never learned the blessing of giving. He only thinks about receiving. He didn't learn the blessing of working & contributing something to life & those around him.
B. The 2nd reason his life is such a tragedy is because it is through the work we do that our personalities are developed & we reach our greatest potential. So many people today seem to have an distaste to work.
ILL. Have you heard about the man who went to his doctor & told him about his aches & pains & that he wasn't able to do all the things at home that needed to be done.
After undergoing a battery of tests, he said, "Now, Doc, I can take it. Tell me in plain English just what is wrong with me." "Well, okay," the doctor replied. "In plain English: there is nothing physically wrong with you. You're just lazy."
"Okay," said the man. "Now give me a medical term so I can tell my wife."
APPL. The tragic thing in this man's life in Proverbs was that because he never worked, his leadership qualities, his sense of responsibility, his determination, & even his feeling of self-worth were never really developed.
One last question, "What did laziness do to this man's life?" Well, there are at least three things.
A. His laziness contributed to the fact that he was never able to bring in a harvest. He never knew the joy of going out at harvest time, after he had cultivated the ground, planted the seeds, & watched them grow.
He could have grown flowers that would fill the air with perfume. He could have grown crops that would have fed hungry people. But instead, he raised weeds. And he never knew the joy of harvesting his crop.
B. The 2nd thing that his laziness did was that it caused the weeds to grow. Now, he never made a decision to grow weeds. It was not as though he said, "This year I'll plant weeds & see what a fine crop of thorns & nettles I can grow." He never decided that!
The only decision he made was not to plant anything. Nature took care of the rest. The moment you decide not to plant something positive in your life, look out! The negative takes over.
You can raise a fine crop of weeds with flabby muscles & soft white palms. They just grow on their own. You don't have to do anything to raise weeds. And there are some people just like that. They don't want to be unChristian, but then, they're not really willing to put any effort into being a Christian, either.
"What must I do to be lost?" Nothing. Do nothing, & you are automatically lost. You see, nature abhors a vacuum. And the moment we decide not to cultivate the soil, & not to plant good seed, the weeds automatically begin to grow. They'll grow, & they'll blight your life.
C. That is the final thing that his laziness did. The wall was neglected & the weeds grew. And the picture of total disintegration shows nothing left of his garden. Now the snakes live there. Now the wild animals run through it. It has been totally ruined because the man decided to do nothing.
APPL. Our lives are the same. When we do nothing for the Lord, then the weeds begin to grow. Soon the walls that protected us from the evil one come tumbling down. And without God's presence, evil comes rushing in, & there is nothing left at all.
So this morning, if we, as Christians, are going to live for Christ we must become workers. We must build up the walls, cultivate the soil & make sure that the seed of the Gospel is planted in hearts & lives, so that people may be changed from producing evil to producing good. That is our task.